“curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden’s dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you..”
– Ross Gay
To feel fearful is to feel small and sometimes overwhelmed by life and death which appear to be separate and distinct from one another and from ourselves. This poem talks about turning on anger as a reaction to fear and instead steadying oneself within the experience of smallness. Rooting, watching and walking – simple acts of living that take us deep into our lives and culminate, like this poem, in gratitude.
If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden’s dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.
Ross Gay
From: Against Which
Your words emanate such a positive energy. I say thank you to you for sharing this joyful gratitude and spirit.